Matters of the Heart

Greetings Everyone,

I hope you are all well. I want to discuss something that is affecting me at the moment. That topic is dating after heartbreak. Before I go further, I want to make it clear that it is a personal choice about dating after heartbreak. I am not trying to sway anyone in one direction or another. Every point I make is that people have to do what is best for them. It is also my goal to empower everyone to love themselves enough to make the best possible decision. Yes, this is something that I am learning for myself as well.

As I have stated before, my story gets deep and I have had an array of experiences. Still, my ultimate goal is to heal in order for me to be the best version of me possible. I have made some progress and I have a long way to go. Through all of the ups and downs, my journey is one that I wouldn’t want to change before I have learned so much. My story has helped some people, as I have been told. One of my dreams is to become a motivational speaker because I overcame so much. Be strong in your journey and know that you will continue to thrive and persevere, despite any negative circumstancces. How we choose to deal with everything is up to us. Relationships are a touchy topic for me because I have experienced so much in all relationships, not just romantic. Here is my story and current situation about rebounding after divorce.

I only had one real relationship to date. I had a boyfriend in middle school, which was for one week only. He wanted to have sex and I was not willing to at that age. He and I are still friends to this day. That situation doesn’t count in my opinion. LOL. In terms of true ups and downs, I experienced nearly everything you can think of with my ex-husband. We met during our high school years. We started dating in college. We went through a lot together. He was my first love. Even with everything that he put me through, he will always have a special place in my heart because of the nature of our relationship – at least the early years.

What I realize now is that he and I became co-defendant on one another. Neither one of us had the best self esteem. Neither one of us had a lot of friends. Both of us were introverted. We both had an extended amount of baggage from our upbringings that we never addressed. As a result, our relationship was always plagued with problems. Neither of us felt we were loved by some of our family members growing up. As we became older, our interests changed. Then again, we might have always had separate interests which were masked by our co-dependency. Another thing that I realize now is that due to his narcissism, he took advantage of me being the truest definition of an empath. I am the type of person who would do anything for anyone. In fact, I went out of my way to make our relationship work. Maybe this is why that pain still haunts me almost three years later. No, I do not miss him. He hurt me so badly that I am afraid to date again.

I tried to meet men after him. I did not meet men who were a good fit for me. I had an one night stand with one man. It was going to be the same situation with another man on my 34th birthday. That was a lot of foolishness which was met with a lot of disappointment and sadness. That is another story. All I will say is that both of these situations were lessons learned. In terms of my ex-husband, he was able to move on quickly. He is now remarried. I do wish him nothing but love and happiness. I am not a hateful person. Maybe in the future, he and I can be friends again. I have forgiven him for a lot. I am still forgiving myself for other things. I am not blaming all of our problems on him. I had a hand in our demise as well. I accept full responsibility. I am sorry for the pain that I caused him. No one is perfect. We are all flawed. It is important that we understand our responsibility of our actions.

Before I met my ex-husband, I had a different friend from high school. He was the closest thing I had to a boyfriend then. He is still one of my closest friends 20 years later. I always had feelings for him, but they were never reciprocated. I regretted for years that I never knew how to talk to him. Sometimes I feel like I missed out on a good thing. Yes, I did eventually tell him the truth. While he never fully addressed it, I am at a point where I rather he and I remain friends. He was there through some mod the best and worst times of my life. I would not change our friendship for anything in the world. I do not hesitate to tell him that. He was my rock and comfort in the aftermath of my relationship with my ex-husband. I tell him often not to end up like me, settling out of loneliness. There was a time where I would have given him anything and everything he could have wanted in a relationship. Maybe it is for the best that we never pursued one. At the same time, he was always pretty vocal about his disdain about me dating. I don’t know what the future holds. However, no matter what, he and I will always be friends. One thing that I have come to understand about that process is that my ex-husband was always extremely threatened by that friendship. It was 100% platonic. My friend kept his distance out of respect to my ex-husband. There is always that debate about whether men and women can remain platonic friends without one or both catching feelings. That was the case with us. Whoever my friend ends up with will be lucky. I want him to be happy no matter who he chooses since happiness is a choice. He has his opinions about some of my choices I’ve made in my life. We don’t always agree, however he is honestly my voice of reason. I can go on and on about our friendship, but I won’t. Still, I cannot thank him enough for teaching me the true meaning of friendship.

Fast forward to now in terms of my dating dilemma. There is a part of me that wants to date. I thrive on afffection. I love hugs and kisses. I am a nurturer by nature. I always have been. I gave up on trying to meet men for the moment because I want to focus more on me. There is the adage of being the person who you are trying to attract. This is something that is important to me. Because of my indecision, I think that is the best alternative for me at the moment, outside of the situation that I am about to describe.

I met a man indirectly some years ago. I won’t discuss how I know him. He is one person who goes above and beyond for me in terms of advocating about things that are not right in terms of the way I am treated in certain situations. One example of this is a recent one where he told me that there was an issue with the gear shift in my car. When I went in for the car dealership to review it, they did acknowdge that there was a problem. Additionally, I needed to bring my car back for them to replace the part and do other maintenance. I was always taught to take a man with me whenever I go to a car dealership since I am a woman. At the second appointment, I asked him to accompany me to the dealership. He obliged. I was surprised because whenever we make other plans, they either never happen or they do not happen the way we plan them. Anyway, he met me there shortly after I arrived. He told me he woke up late that day and I was not expecting to see him. I was plannning to wait at the dealership the entire time it was going to take for my car to be repaired. The people at this particiular dealership speaks to me in a manner in which they are talking to me as if I am stupid. I will address this in a later blog. We left the dealership and ran some errands. He told me to call the dealership to check on the status of my car. There was no response. We headed back after a couple of hours and my car still wasn’t ready. He went to the manager and not only voiced his opinion, but he told them that I am his girlfriend and he had to take off work to accompany me. That is partially true. I was amazed and left in a good mood for days. People noticed. LOL.

The manner in which we really became friends is still comical to me. I’ll keep that to myself for now. I’d like to think that he and I are close based on our conversations and interactions. In fact, the people around us assume we are together or that we have at least slept together. What he doesn’t know is that I am open to having a relationship with him. I don’t know how to have that conversation with him. I am not sure how ready I am for that conversation based on our circumstances. I have been thinking about it heavily lately. I really like him as a person. He has a strong personality, which is met with challenges and opposition from a lot of the people that we know. He listens to me to a degree and we talk about a lot of things. The longer I am around him, the more I get to know about him, the more I like him. We had went out last summer one time and it wasn’t a good experience for me, I was disappointed. I enjoy being around him. What scares me most is that his personality is similar to my ex-husband’s. I was initially against it for that very reason. As time goes by and I am better able to understand him, that part doesn’t bother me.

Based on the things he says to me along with some of his actions; it seems his feels the same way I do. Then again, I have never been good at reading between the lines or understanding all verbal and nonverbal cues. I know I do not want to be hurt again. Yes, I understand there is some element of pain in every relationship. However with me personally still working through the extent of my pain, it is a challenge. He and I talk about our past relationships often. He tells me that I need to let that hurt go since it happened and I need to move on. He tells me often how he thinks I would be a great wife and mother. He also voices my opinion about how my ex treated me. He spends a lot of time complementing me. When I address the matter in therapy, my therapist is concerned about me wanting to pursue this relationship out of loneliness. She is afraid that this will turn into a similar situation like it was with my ex-husband. Yes I am a litttle lonely, but not lonely enough to jump into a bad situation.

Healing after heartbreak is a hard process. For me, it has been long. I am a little disappointed that the progress has been so slow. Still any progress is good. I am grateful for the experiences either way. I really want to explore things with my friend. I will talk to him about it at some point. I hope you enjoyed this post. Feel free to chime in. Be blessed, Rayne Elise.